Title: Lonely
Warnings: Angst
He was there every day. Emily first noticed him about a month ago when she was on her daily morning run. He stood in the shadow of one of the oldest trees. He was nattily dressed in a stuffy outdated suit. He had white hair and stood straight and stiff, as if moving from the position would cause him pain. He always stared to the south.
At first, she'd found it rather disturbing. She knew there were plenty of psychos running around the parks of the world, but the fact that one would come back every day to the same place, to do the same thing. It just bothered her.
But then she started to watch him. And she discovered he did move. He shifted position every now and then. The most intriguing motion, though, was when he sniffed. It wasn't like an 'I have a cold' sniff. It was as if he were crying. Her suspicions were confirmed when, once, he bent and wiped a tear out of his eye and rubbed his cheek dry.
She probably should have called the police and told them about the possibly suicidal, crying man in the park. Instead, she chose to approach him. She found that she became cold and shuddered with some kind of primal fear as she got closer to him. Eventually he noticed her and turned just enough to look at her out of the corner of his eye. She was startled by the profound tiredness written in every line of his face.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly. "I mean... I've noticed... that you come here a lot."
He laughed a laugh devoid of humor or joy and looked back to the south. "You should leave me alone. I'm dangerous." He hissed the last s out as if remembering something painful. She watched him for a long moment and was struck by something she'd missed all of the times she'd watched him.
He was lonely, a kind of lonely that tore at the soul and led people to drugs and knives, the kind of loneliness that can only come from losing hope. She involuntarily reached for him, but he noticed and jerked away.
She had gotten his attention, but that only seemed to deepen the lines in his face and darken that air around him. "Please," he whispered. "Please. I just want to be alone for awhile." His eyes begged her and she felt herself step away.
She turned her back to him and began to walk away. When she glanced over her shoulder, he was watching her sadly.